Enterprises (such as companies, educational organizations, government agencies, and so forth) often use collections of server computers to provide various functionalities, such as to run software applications, to provide online services, to implement databases, and so forth. For space efficiency, server computers can be in the form of blade servers (or more simply “blades”), where a blade server or blade includes a housing defining an enclosure in which are provided one or more processors, memory devices, input/output (I/O) devices, and disk storage devices. Blade servers typically have relatively small form factors to allow a relatively large number of such blade servers to be placed side by side in a server rack.
As demands on computing capabilities have increased, more components, such as memory modules and/or processors, are squeezed into the finite space defined by a typical blade server enclosure. As a result, the available space for other components, such as disk storage drives, in the blade server enclosure is reduced.
Often, a blade server includes multiple disk storage drives (e.g., two disk storage drives) that are mounted in a side-by-side arrangement in which the front portions of each disk storage drive is accessible by a user through the front of the blade server enclosure. This side-by-side arrangement allows the disk storage drives to be more conveniently inserted or removed, which is desirable with hot-pluggable disk storage drives. With such arrangement, a user can easily hot remove or hot insert the disk storage drives from or into the blade server enclosure. However, as more components are added to the blade server enclosure, it may no longer be possible to install hot-pluggable disk storage drives in the traditional side-by-side arrangement inside the blade server enclosure.